Analysis: When the Price is Not the Price

Jason Cross: Jonesing for one of those Radeon HD 3870 or GeForce 8800 GT cards? Expect to pay more than MSRP. Sometimes when we review something, the price isn't actually the price—at least not for long. And it drives us crazy as much as it does you.

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When the glowing reviews of Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GT hit the Net, reviewers couldn't believe how great a card it is for "just $200." Many in the tech press took Nvidia's early guidance that these cards would cost "between $200-250" on faith. Others (myself included) did some last-minute calling and emailing to find out what the MSRP was on various cards—the XFX card we reviewed, for instance, carried an MSRP of $249 for the non-overclocked version. Still a great bargain, right?

And that's what those cards cost—briefly. Sometimes you could even find it for less, with special rebate deals that last a week and make the price look low in shopping engines, only to have it inflate when you add the thing to your online cart. The cynic in me thinks that Nvidia works closely with their partners on these rebate deals to make the cards cost effectively $30-50 less in the first week or two, so they seem like a better value and get better reviews, before the prices are jacked up. I have no evidence of this; I'm just cynical that way.

Then ATI released the Radeon HD 3850, at the bargain price of $179. Sure it's not nearly as fast as the 8800 GT, but it's not in the same price bracket, right? In the sub-$200 market, nothing can touch it. In fact, all the 8800 GT cards seem to have magically inflated to $269 or more, and most of those are out of stock. Fortunately, you can still easily find those 3850 cards for $179, but that doesn't get ATI (and their partners) off the hook. The same pricing shenanigans have occurred with the Radeon HD 3870.

ATI bet big on the 3850 model, and perhaps the feedback they got from OEMs was that it was the model they wanted most. But the enthusiast press and gamers got behind the 3870 in a pretty big way. For $219, it's considerably faster than the 3850, and with 512MB of RAM it doesn't fall into the same RAM-restricted performance problems that the 3850 does in some newer titles. We checked prices after our review went up, and the card was indeed widely available for $219.

Today, all the prices have inflated to $269, and most of those are out of stock. Dell's website actually has a 3870 card by VisionTek for $224, but that's really a $280 price with a $56 rebate. Oh, and it says "Usually Ships: 1-2 Weeks" which is Dell's way of saying "Out of Stock."

Jason was a certified computer geek at an early age, playing with his family's Apple II when he was still barely able to write. It didn't take long for him to start playing with the hardware, adding in 80-column cards and additional RAM as his family moved up through Apple II+, IIe, IIgs, and eventually the Macintosh. He was sucked into Intel based side of the PC world by his friend's 8088 (at the time, the height of sophisticated technology), and this kicked off a...
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